Aaron Koblin: Artfully visualizing our humanity

( The above image was created by Paul Butler, who had access to Facebook's Apache Hive database and its 500m records. Through a series of carefully constructed steps, he was able to create this image. More details on how he did it here. )

"Artist Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data — and at times vast numbers of people — and weaves them into stunning visualizations. From elegant lines tracing airline flights to landscapes of cell phone data, from a Johnny Cash video assembled from crowd-sourced drawings to the "Wilderness Downtown" video that customizes for the user, his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human. Watch his TED Talk below."